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The  Scope  of  The 
Missionary  Enterprise 


An  Address  Delivered  by 
Professor  ERNEST  D.  BURTON,  D.D. 
of  the  University  of  Chicago 

at  the 

Northern  Baptist  Convention 
Los  Angeles,  Cal. 

May  20,  1915 


American  Baptist  Foreign  Mission 

Society 

Ford  Building  Boston,  Mass. 


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The  Scope  of  the  Missionary  Enterprise 

Address  by  ERNEST  D.  BURTON,  D.  D. 


THE  ultimate  aim  of  Christian  missions  is  to  bring 
the  whole  world  under  the  sway  of  the  principles  and 
spirit  of  Jesus.  Its  goal  is  a  human  race,  living  in 
peace  one  with  another  and  in  fellowship  with  the 
universal  Father  as  revealed  in  His  Son,  Jesus  Christ. 
It  is  a  task  that  calls  for  sacrifice,  devotion  of  lives, 
consecration  of  means,  and  for  boundless  enthusiasm  and 
courage.  But  it  calls  also,  and  scarcely  less,  for  wise  organiza¬ 
tion,  careful  planning,  broad  vision,  wide  co-operation.  It  is  no 
longer  the  work,  if  it  ever  was,  of  a  few  exceptionally  devoted 
and  enthusiastic  men  and  women  who  from  their  mountain-top 
have  caught  a  vision  denied  to  the  church  at  large.  It  is,  and 
until  its  full  accomplishment,  must  remain  the  work  of  the 
whole  Church  —  not  of  one  land,  or  of  one  race,  or  of  one 
denomination,  but  of  all  who  acknowledge  the  Lordship  of 
Jesus  and  have  enlisted  under  His  leadership. 

Springing  from  a  religious  motive  and  begun  with  an  almost 
exclusive  emphasis  upon  the  religious  welfare  and  the  future 
salvation  of  the  heathen,  it  has  been  forced  by  the  very  Spirit 
of  Christ  which  gave  birth  to  it  to  extend  itg  activities  to  every 
phase  of  life,  —  religious,  educational,  and  physical.  It  con¬ 
cerns  itself  riot  only  with  the  religious  condition  of  the  individ¬ 
ual,  but  heals  disease,  founds  hospitals,  builds  schools,  develops 
industry,  creates  literature,  transforms  society.  It  demands, 
therefore,  preachers,  teachers,  translators  and  writers,  physi¬ 
cians,  industrial  experts,  economists,  business  men,  statesmen. 
It  can  no  more  be  stayed  than  the  westward  march  of  empire 
can  be  turned  back,  or  the  onward  flow  of  rivers  to  the  ocean  be 
stopped;  nor  will  it  arrest  its  majestic  onward  movement  until 
•the  name  of  Christ  is  known  and  honored  in  all  lands,  the  ideals 
of  the  nations  have  been  transformed  and  elevated,  and  the 
peoples  of  the  earth  are  dwelling  together  not  only  in  peace  but 
in  mutual  helpfulness.  It  is  not  an  exaggeration  but  the  sober 
truth  to  say  that  it  is  at  once  the  greatest  and  the  noblest 
enterprise  in  which  men  are  engaged  today. 

Within  our  own  day  we  have  witnessed  a  remarkable  change 
in  the  esteem  in  which  the  missionary  enterprise  is  generally 
held.  Formerly  ignored  by  statesmen,  to  whom  it  seemed  only 
the  fad  of  fanatics,  hated  by  merchants,  who  saw  in  it  an  obstacle 
to  the  achievement  of  their  own  commercial  plans,  scoffed  at  by 
newspaper  writers,  to  whom  its  chief  value  was  as  the  butt  of  a 


[  *  ] 


joke,  it  has  come  to  be  recognized  alike  by  statesmen,  merchants, 
educators,  and  editorial  writers  as  an  enterprise  which,  however 
little  they  may  themselves  be  disposed  to  engage  in  it,  is  worthy 
of  their  respect  and  must  be  reckoned  with  as  one  of  the  great 
forces  of  modern  times. 

If  a  man  travels  round  the  world  these  days  and  does  not  come 
back  with  some  criticisms  to  make  upon  missionary  work, 
some  suggestions  of  respects  in  which  it  might  be  made  more 
effective,  you  may  set  him  down  as  an  undiscerning  enthusiast 
or  as  one  who  has  carried  with  him  no  powers  of  observation. 
If  he  comes  back  only  to  scoff  and  belittle  the  work  of  missions, 
failing  to  recognize  that  in  all  its  aspects  it  is  one  of  the  greatest 
enterprises  in  which  men  are  engaged  today,  you  may  write 
him  down  as  a  hopelessly  narrow-minded  globe-trotter.  The 
probability  is  that  he  has  not  gone  outside  of  the  foreign  settle¬ 
ments  in  the  port  cities,  or  has  met  only  the  most  unimportant 
or  ill-informed  of  the  European  residents  of  Eastern  lands. 

THE  QUESTION  FOR  US 

If  ever  there  was  a  time  when  any  denomination  of  Christians 
was  warranted  in  dreaming  that  it  might  some  time  fill  the 
whole  earth  with  its  members  and  become  the  one  force  favored 
of  God  to  be  charged  with  the  conquest  of  the  earth,  that  day 
has  passed.  To  no  one  denomination  can  this  privilege  be  given.' 
No  one  is  adequate  for  so  limitless  a  task.  But  to  us  as  American 
Baptists  there  has  fallen  a  goodly  share  in  this  magnificent 
enterprise.  We  do  not  need,  at  present  at  least,  a  larger  or 
better  field  than  we  already  possess.  The  question  we  have 
most  seriously  to  consider  is  whether  we  are  to  meet  adequately 
the  responsibilities  we  have  already  assumed  in  these  lands  which 
we  have  claimed  for  ourselves  or  which  by  common  consent 
have  been  assigned  to  us,  and  which  make  upon  us  demands  for 
men  and  money,  far  beyond  —  I  do  not  say  our  resources  —  but 
our  present  scale  of  consecration  or  of  giving. 

OUR  TASK  IN  BURMA 

Turn  your  eyes  for  a  moment  to  Burma,  that  land  in  which  a 
little  over  a  hundred  years  ago  the  sainted  Judson  and  his  early 
companions  sacrificed  and  suffered  and  toiled  that  they  might 
lay  the  foundations  of  Christianity  among  the  people  of  that 
then  benighted  land.  Go  now,  as  many  of  you  have  gone,  to 
Rangoon  and  Moulmein  and  Henzada.  See  there  the  Christian 
churches  that  have  been  gathered,  many  of  them  already  fully 

[  3  ] 


self-supporting,  the  schools  that  have  been  founded,  the  press 
that  has  been  established,  the  college  - —  the  only  Christian 
college  and  the  only  college  of  any  kind  but  one  in  that  land. 
Here,  at  least,  we  have  a  work  which  may  not  only  appeal  to 
our  Christian  zeal  and  waken  our  sense  of  responsibility,  but 
justify  us  in  feeling  that  we,  as  American  Baptists,  walking  in 
the  footsteps  of  our  fathers  and  building  on  their  foundations, 
have  wrought  something  of  which  we  may  justly  be  proud.  Yet 
even  here,  how  incomplete  is  our  work  and  how  large  our 
responsibility!  We  have  the  only  Christian  publishing  house  in 
the  land.  It  must  produce  the  Christian  literature  for  a  nation. 
We  have,  as  I  have  said,  the  only  Christian  college  for  all  these 
Burman  and  Karen  people.  Should  its  doors  be  closed,  there 
would  be  no  institution,  and  little  hope  of  any  institution,  in 
which  there  should  be  trained  the  leaders  of  this  great  Christian 
community.  The  Government  college,  largely  permeated  with 
the  spirit  of  Buddhism,  would  remain  as  the  only  institution  in 
which  men  might  receive  an  education  above  that  of  the  high 
school,  and  the  inevitable  result  would  be  that  in  a  compara¬ 
tively  short  time  the  leadership  of  the  nation,  the  control  of  its 
ideals  and  its  future  history,  would  pass  in  large  measure  to  the 
educated  non-Christian  men.  Today  we  are  able  to  maintain 
a  college,  but  barely  able  to  do  so.  To  keep  pace  with  the 
situation,  to  retain  our  leadership,  to  meet  our  solemn  responsi¬ 
bility,  a  responsibility  which  rests  upon  us  here  as  nowhere  else 
in  the  world,  demands  speedy  enlargement  of  our  work  and 
re-enforcement  of  our  staff. 

INDIA  AND  ASSAM 

Turn  for  an  instant  to  South  India,  that  great  field  in  which 
the  sainted  Jewett,  the  masterful  Clough,  and  their  many  noble 
associates  and  successors  have  wrought  so  effectively  that 
among  the  Telugus  of  that  land  we  have  thousands  of  Christians 
who  still  look  to  us  as  American  Baptists  for  leadership  and 
inspiration.  We  are  not  straitened  in  the  boundaries  of  the 
field.  There  is  ample  scope  for  development.  We  are  straitened 
only  in  our  own  resources  and  in.  the  consecration  of  those 
resources  to  the  realization  of  the  opportunities  that  are  set 
before  us. 

With  twenty  million  Telugus  as  our  parish  and  sixty  thousand 
Christians  still  in  a  condition  to  need  education,  watch  care,  and 
guidance,  the-staff  of  missionaries  has  been  reduced  within  the 
year  by  twenty-two,  and  reenforced  by  only  four,  thus  suffering 
a  net  loss  of  eighteen. 

[  4  ] 


Or  consider  the  Bengal-Orissa  field  in  North  India,  the  work 
in  which  was -begun  by  the  Free  Baptists  and  passed  to  us  by 
the  union  of  the  two  Societies.  Here  we  have  a  population  of 
over  four  million  people  among  whom  ours  are  the  only  mis¬ 
sionaries.  For  this  great  field  we  have  seven  missionary  families 
and  nine  single  women. 

Turn  again  to  Assam,  that  great,  though  little  known  and 
rarely  visited  country,  where  our  missions  are  so  widely  scattered 
and  the  means  of  travel  are  so  imperfect  that  it  sometimes 
requires  almost  a  week’s  journey  for  the  missionary  to  attend 
the  Conference  of  his  mission,  and  where  there  is  so  great  a 
diversity  of  races  and  tribes  that  167  languages  and  dialects  are 
spoken  and  there  is  no  common  lingua  franca  by  which  all  or  any 
considerable  number  of  them  can  be  reached.  Our  work  has 
been  largely  among  the  Garos  and  the  Nagas,  and  has  reached 
a  point  where  the  development  of  educational  work  is  a  matter 
of  pressing  importance.  At  present  there  is  little  education 
above  a  high  school,  and  indeed  but  little  even  as  high  as  that, 
and  there  is  urgent  need  of  the  development  of  industrial  schools. 
For  the  prosecution  of  our  work  there  are  needed  immediately 
at  least  ten  more  families,  and  from  fifty  thousand  dollars  to  one 
hundred  thousand  dollars  for  the  establishment  of  the  most 
necessary  schools. 


MARVELS  IN  CHINA 

From  the  lands  about  the  Indian  Ocean  turn  to  China,  where 
despite  the  troublous  political  situation  the  doors  of  opportunity 
stand  wide  open,  in  the  south  and  in  the  north,  in  the  east,  and 
in  the  west.  It  is  a  marvelous  change  that  has  come  over  the 
attitude  of  the  people  toward  Christianity  in  twenty  years.  The 
meetings  held  by  Mr.  Mott  in  1913-1914,  and  even  more  those 
held  by  Mr.  Sherwood  Eddy  in  1914—1915,  have  demonstrated 
an  interest  in  religion  and  a  readiness  to  listen  to  the  message  of 
Christianity  far  surpassing  anything  that  has  previously  existed 
in  that  country  in  the  hundred  years  since  Morrison.  And  this 
interest  has  been  manifested,  not  among  the  less  intelligent 
classes,  but  precisely  among  the  best  educated,  the  students 
and  the  officials.  Special  audience  halls  have  had  to  be  built  to 
accommodate  the  thousands  that  have  come  to  listen  to  the 
Gospel  message,  and  even  then  two  successive  sessions  have 
sometimes  been  necessary  to  enable  all  to  hear. 

But  it  is  not  only  when  the  fame  of  such  a  man  as  Mr.  Mott 
or  Mr.  Eddy  has  drawn  crowds  that  there  has  been  a  readiness 
to  hear  the  Gospel.  In  our  own  missions  in  South  China  at 

[  S  ] 


Changning,  Ungkung,  and  Kaying,  the  men  of  the  better  edu¬ 
cated  and  well-to-do  classes  have  not  only  listened  to  but 
accepted  the  Gospel,  and  are  asking  for  the  establishment  of 
schools.  From  the  work  of  Mr.  Bousfield  in  Changning,  where 
three  years  ago  Christianity  was  practically  unknown,  thirteen 
educated  men  are  proposing  to  fit  themselves  for  Christian 
service  as  preachers  or  physicians.  A  military  commander,  when 
converted,  resigned  his  commission,  and  is  now  studying  medi¬ 
cine  at  Nanking  to  become  a  Christian  physician. 

At  Shanghai,  the  number  of  students  in  the  college  is  increas¬ 
ing,  and  from  among  the  graduates  a  goodly  number  are  passing 
into  the  theological  school,  so  that  we  shall  soon  have  that  which 
we  have  hitherto  lacked  —  at  least  a  few  thoroughly  educated 
ministers. 

In  West  China,  that  marvelously  beautiful  country  with  its 
50,000,000  people  of  sturdy  stock,  the  doors  are  wide  open,  but 
we  are  greatly  straitened  both  for  men  and  money.  Our  most 
pressing  need  is  perhaps  well-trained  Chinese  teachers  to  take 
charge  of  the  village  and  higher  schools  which  shall  in  turn 
produce  the  men  to  be  preachers  and  leaders  of  a  Christian 
community.  And  this  again  calls  for  the  development  of  the 
schools  in  which  such  teachers  shall  be  led  to  Christ  and  fitted 
for  service.  The  two  Governors  of  the  province  of  Szechuan 
have  each  recently  given  S3, 000  for  the  endowment  of  the 
Union  Christian  College  in  which  we  as  Baptists  are  partners, 
and  the  President  of  the  Republic  has  given  S4,000;  and  there 
is  an  urgent  call  that  we  should  meet  these  gifts  with  responsive 
generosity. 

OTHER  OPEN  DOORS 

The  time  would  fail  me  to  speak  of  the  opportunities  that  are 
open  to  us  in  Africa,  in  Europe,  in  Japan,  and  the  Philippines. 
It  is  the  same  story  everywhere  —  wide  open  doors,  abounding 
opportunity,  readiness  to  listen  to  the  message  and  loud  and 
insistent  calls  for  men  and  money  with  which  to  avail  ourselves 
of  our  almost  limitless  opportunities.  Here  and  there  one  hears 
the  sneer  at  the  failure  of  Christianity  as  demonstrated  in  the 
terrible  war  going  on  between  Christian  nations  in  Europe. 
But  for  the  most  part,  this  war  has  seemed  only  to  quicken  the 
sense  of  the  need  of  the  Gospel  upon  the  part  of  Asiatics  as  well  as 
of  Europeans. 

THE  GREAT  OBJECTIVE 

Now  the  great  objective  in  all  these  lands  —  that  for  which 
we  ought  everywhere  to  be  toiling  and  to  which  we  should  be 
looking  forward  —  is  the  development  of  a  native  church  with 

[  6  ] 


competent  leaders.  No  nation  can  ever  be  fully  or  even  approxi¬ 
mately  Christianized  by  foreigners.  The  force  that  brings  a 
people  to  the  feet  of  Jesus  Christ  must  be  a  force  exerted  from 
within  that  people  itself.  It  is  not  that  the  work  of  evangeliza¬ 
tion  is  to  cease.  So  long  as  men  shall  be  born  and  generation 
shall  succeed  generation,  this  work  will  go  on.  It  is  not  even 
that  we  have  reached  the  time  when  there  is  no  further  place 
for  the  foreign  Evangelist.  But  it  is  true  that  in  some  of  these 
lands  the  day  is  near  at  hand  in  which  we  must  call  upon  the 
native  church  to  accept  as  its  responsibility  and  task  the  work 
of  evangelization;  looking  to  us  for  advice  and  inspiration,  and 
for  assistance  in  the  development  of  those  institutions  by  which 
men  who  have  accepted  Christ  as  their  Master  are  trained  for 
service  in  His  Kingdom  and  through  which  the  Spirit  of  Christ 
shall  adequately  express  itself  in  efforts  for  the  uplift  and 
transformation  of  society,  but  holding  themselves  responsible 
for  the  evangelization  of  their  own  people.  And  it  is  true  that 
in  all  these  lands  this  condition  of  things,  in  which  a  large  and 
increasing  measure  of  responsibility  for  the  progress  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God  shall  be  laid  upon  the  native  Church,  is  so  near 
at  hand  that  it  is  for  this  especially  that  we  must  plan,  and  to 
this  especially  that  we  must  direct  our  efforts. 

FOUR  ESSENTIALS 

Now  to  realize  this  ideal  and  achieve  this  end  means  four  things : 

First,  effective  evangelization,  whether  by  native  or  foreign 
agencies,  by  which  there  shall  be  constantly  added  to  the 
Christian  community  converts  truly  born  from  above. 

Second,  organization  of  those  who  have  thus  become  members 
of  the  body  of  Christ  in  such  way  that  they  may  mutually 
contribute  to  one  another’s  edification  and  be  built  up  into  an 
effective  agency  for  the  spread  of  the  truth. 

Third,  education,  by  which  there  shall  be  created,  first  of  all 
a  body  of  men  and  women,  young  and  old,  capable  of  a  large 
vision  and  of  intelligent  activity;  and  then  the  leaders  to  inspire 
and  guide  this  ever  growing  company  to  intelligent  and  effective 
efforts  for  the  winning  of  their  own  people  to  acceptance  of  the 
truth  and  to  the  building  of  their  lives  in  accordance  with  it. 

Fourth,  the  creation  of  those  philanthropic  and  humanizing 
agencies  which  are  not  only  necessary  for  the  improvement  of 
social  conditions  and  the  creation  of  a  high  type  of  national  life, 
but  are  absolutely  essential  for  the  effective  expression  of  the 
Spirit  of  Christ  which  has  become  the  dominating  force  in  the 
life  of  the  new  community. 

[  7  ] 


THE  MAGNITUDE  AND  DIGNITY  OF  THE  ENTERPRISE 

From  whatever  point  of  view,  therefore,  we  look  at  it  — 
whether  our  eyes  turn  to  the  different  countries  in  which  it  is 
our  privilege  as  a  denomination  and  our  solemn  duty  to  propa¬ 
gate  the  religion  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  or  con¬ 
sider  the  breadth  and  depth  of  the  task  which  is  committed  to 
us  in  every  land  —  we  can  but  be  solemnized  by  the  magnitude 
and  dignity  of  the  enterprise  and  inspired  to  our  utmost  exer¬ 
tions  by  the  magnificence  of  the  opportunities  which  are  set 
before  us.  If  indeed  it  be  man’s  highest  privilege  to  be  a  fellow- 
worker  with  God,  how  magnificent  and  how  limitless  is  the 
privilege  which  is  given  to  us  as  a  denomination  and  how  instant 
and  hearty  and  continuous  ought  to  be  our  response  to  the  call 
of  God  to  co-operation  with  Him. 

THE  FOUR  FORCES  AT  WORK 

Now,  under  God,  the  forces  that  are  accomplishing  all  the 
results  which  we  have  been  endeavoring  to  set  forth  are,  broadly 
speaking,  four:  First,  the  resident  native  Christian  community, 
made  up  of  those  who  have  accepted  the  religion  of  our  Lord 
Jesus;  -second,  the  missionaries  who  have  gone  out  from  Chris¬ 
tian  lands  to  carry  the  message  of  Christ  and  to  establish  in  the 
lands  to  which  they  have  gone  a  Christian  community  and  all 
those  institutions  and  agencies  which  inevitably  follow  where 
the  Christian  message  comes;  and  with  these  we  should  count, 
as  an  element  not  to  be  forgotten,  all  those  other  Christian 
men  and  women  who,  whether  engaged  in  diplomatic,  consular, 
educational,  or  commercial  enterprises,  worthily  represent  and 
adorn  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ;  third,  the  boards  of  mana¬ 
gers  and  officers  of  the  Societies  which  have  been  organized  in 
the  home  land  to  carry  forward  this  work  abroad;  and  fourth, 
and  finally,  the  churches  from  which  both  the  second  and  third 
classes  must  come  and  from  which  there  must  also  come  all  the 
financial  resources  with  which  to  support  the  work,  save  those 
which  are  contributed  by  the  Christian  churches  on  the  field. 

I.  THE  FORCES  ON  THE  FIELD 

I  have  mentioned  the  Christian  forces  on  the  field  first  of  all 
for  two  reasons:  first,  because  of  their  vital  importance  and 
value  in  the  whole  task;  and  second,  because  of  the  danger,  often 
actually  realized,  that  we  shall  overlook  them  or  treat  them 
rather  as  material  to  be  worked  upon  than  as  forces  to  be 
depended  upon.  It  ought  never  to  be  forgotten  that  from  the 

[  8  ] 


moment  we  have  a  company,  even  of  two  or  three,  who  have 
accepted  the  religion  and  the  lordship  of  Jesus  Christ,  from  that 
moment  we  have  the  nucleus  of  a  great,  all-inclusive  Christian 
community  which  it  is  our  aim  to  assist  in  creating,  and  that 
this  nucleus  is  not  simply  a  mathematical  or  material  center  to 
which  additions  are  to  be  made  by  accretion,  but  that  in  it  is 
the  power  of  God,  and  in  it  under  God  is  not  the  least  important, 
if  I  dare  not  say  also  the  most  important,  of  all  the  factors  in  the 
situation. 

“The  Kingdom  of  God  is  like  unto  leaven  which  a  woman  took 
and  hid  in  three  measures  of  meal.”  And  when  once  there  is  in 
any  land  a  Christian  community,  however  small,  that  com¬ 
munity,  as  the  leaven  in  the  midst  of  the  lump,  is  of  vital 
importance  and  not  to  be  depreciated  as  compared  with  any 
force  that  may  be  brought  to  bear  from  without. 

But  if  it  is  true  that  from  the  moment  there  is  the  nucleus  of  a 
Christian  community  it  must  be  reckoned  with,  how  much 
more  is  this  true  when  the  two  or  three  have  grown  to  thousands 
and  among  these  thousands  are  men  and  women  who  by 
character,  ability,  and  training  are  worthy  to  be  compared  with 
any  whom  it  is  possible  for  us  to  send  as  missionaries  from  our 
own  Christian  land.  It  is  true,  of  course,  that  the  converts  who, 
'as  the  result  of  the  labors  of  our  missionaries,  turn  from  idols  to 
serve  the  living  and  true  God  are  often,  even  though  they  be 
in  years  mature  men  and  women,  babes  in  Christ  Jesus,  and 
that  they  need  for  a  long  time  the  fatherly  and  motherly  care 
which  we  are  able  to  give  to  them.  But  there  is  the  gravest 
danger,  a  danger  often  realized  in  fact,  that  both  we  at  home 
and  even  our  devoted  missionaries  on  the  field  shall  be  too  slow 
to  recognize  the  unmistakable  signs  of  maturity  on  the  part  of 
those  whom  once  we  counted  babes,  that  we  shall  be  reluctant 
to  admit  them  to  a  position  of  full  equality  with  ourselves,  that 
we  shall  be  too  slow  to  recognize  that  the  time  has  come  when, 
the  country  being  their  own  and  we  foreigners,  the  church  theirs 
and  we  missionaries  and  by  that  title  outsiders,  we  should  yield 
to  them  not  only  the  position  of  equality  but  of  leadership,  and 
should  gladly  cease  to  exercise  any  lordship  over  their  faith, 
contented,  with  the  Apostle  of  old,  to  be  helpers  of  their  joy, 
serving  if  need  be  under  them  as  leaders. 

But  whatever  the  stage  of  development  which  the  Christian 
community  in  these  non-Christian  lands  has  reached,  it  is  a 
mistake  of  the  most  serious  consequence  to  forget  that  they  are 
to  be  reckoned  almost  first  and  foremost  among  the  forces 
which  are  to  bring  about  the  Christianization  of  the  world. 


II.  THE  MISSIONARIES 

Concerning  the  second  class  of  workers,  the  missionaries  who 
go  out  from  Christian  lands,  I  have  already  indicated  suffi¬ 
ciently  perhaps  the  broad  scope  of  the  missionary  enterprise  and 
the  consequent  variety  of  classes  of  workers  which  the  present 
stage  of  our  work  calls  for.  I  want  only  at  this  point  to  em¬ 
phasize  two  facts,  often  insisted  upon  but  not  too  often. 

As  I  have  already  intimated,  the  Christian  church  in  many 
of  the  lands  in  which  we  are  working  has  already  reached  such 
a  stage  of  development  that  the  men  and  women  whom  we  send 
to  those  lands  need  to  possess  a  combination  of  qualities  which 
it  is  a  triumph  of  Christian  grace  to  combine.  I  mean  a  high 
degree  of  highly  trained  ability  and  a  humility  and  self-forget¬ 
fulness  which  is  willing  to  put  this  highly  trained  ability  at  the 
service  of  the  churches  in  all  meekness,  gentleness,  and  courtesy. 
“Among  the  Gentiles,”  Jesus  says,  “they  which  are  accounted 
to  rule  over  them  lord  it  over  them,  and  their  great  ones  exercise 
authority  over  them.  But  it  is  not  so  among  you.  But  whoso¬ 
ever  would  become  great  among  you  shall  be  your  minister, 
and  whosoever  shall  be  first  among  you  shall  be  servant  of  all.” 
The  time  has  come  when  we  must  indeed  send  to  these  lands 
across  the  ocean  our  great  ones,  those  who  are  first  among  us, 
those  who  to  large  native  ability  and  genuine  consecration  to 
the  service  of  Christ  have  added  years  of  training  to  fit  them¬ 
selves  for  their  responsible  task  of  building  the  Kingdom  of 
God  amidst  or  upon  the  ruins  of  the  empires  of  'this  world. 
And  those  whom  we  send  must  be  great,  not  only  in  these 
qualities  which  the  world  recognizes  as  great,  but  also  in  that 
greatness  which  only  they  possess  who,  following  in  the  foot¬ 
steps  of  their  Lord,  are  willing,  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  not 
to  stand  in  the  position  of  lordship  over  the  Lord’s  heritage,  but 
to  minister  and  to  give  their  lives  in  ransoming  men  from  that 
vain  manner  of  life  which  they  have  inherited  from  past  genera¬ 
tions.  I  wish  in  all  honesty  to  bear  my  testimony  to  the  fact 
that  we  have  many  such  among  those  who  are  now  representing 
us  in  Burma  and  India,  in  Assam  and  China,  and  Japan.  But  I 
wish  also  to  urge  that  it  shall  be  clearly  recognized  that  it  is 
more  and  more  necessary  in  choosing  men  for  this  service  to 
choose  only  those  who  give  promise  of  being  great  in  both  those 
senses  of  the  term  of  which  I  have  spoken. 

III.  THE  BOARD  OF  MANAGERS  AND  THE  OFFICERS 

And  what  shall  I  say  concerning  the  work  which  you  have 
committed  to  the  Board  of  Managers  of  this  Society  and  to 

f  io  ] 


its  officers?  Let  me  speak  first  of  the  latter  and,  if  I  can,  give 
to  you  in  a  few  words  a  more  vivid  impression  than  you  have 
perhaps  commonly  had  of  the  difficulty,  delicacy,  responsibility, 
and  breadth  of  the  task  which  is  laid  upon  the  officers  of  the 
Society.  Consider  what  it  means  to  be  the  administrators  of 
a  business  —  to  speak  of  it  by  this  commercial  sounding  term  — 
whose  representatives  number  seven  hundred,  and  all  of  whom, 
when  they  are  in  active  service,  are  separated  from  the  office 
of  administration  by  thousands  of  miles  of  land  and  water. 
Remember  that  these  men  are  scattered  in  many  lands  and 
in  widely  separated  provinces;  that  they  are  engaged  in  evangel¬ 
istic,  educational,  medical  and  industrial  work;  that  they  are 
building  colleges,  managing  hospitals,  organizing  Christian 
forces  of  many  nations,  opening  up  new  territory,  co-operating, 
under  circumstances  of  grave  difficulty,  with  the  representatives 
of  other  denominations  and  of  other  lands;  that  many  of  them 
are  obliged  to  be  at  once  preachers,  teachers,  business  men, 
educators,  statesmen.  Consider  what  is  the  task  of  your 
Foreign  Secretary,  who  must  take  in  the  first  place  a  broad  and 
statesmanlike  view  of  each  of  these  great  situations;  who  must 
know  the  currents  of  life,  political,  intellectual,  social,  in  each  of 
these  lands  sufficiently  to  deal  intelligently  with  the  problems 
which  come  daily  to  his  desk  from  all  these  various  countries  of 
the  globe;  and  in  addition  to  these  tasks,  must,  most  difficult 
of  all,  enter  into  such  tender  and  intelligent  sympathy  with  the 
peculiar  task  and  difficulty  of  each  missionary  that  the  letter 
which  he  sends  in  answer  to  that  which  comes  to  him  shall  be 
not  an  official  document  but  a  genuinely  fraternal  utterance  of 
a  brother’s  heart. 

Try  then  to  put  yourselves  in  the  place  of  the  man  to  whom  is 
committed  the  oversight  of  the  home  field,  who  must  know  how 
much  money  must  be  raised  from  the  churches  in  order  to  meet 
the  urgent  needs  of  the  foreign  work  and  the  necessary  home 
expenses,  and  who  in  order  adequately  to  present  the  facts  to 
the  denomination  must  himself  be  informed  as  to  what  is 
happening  in  all  the  lands  in  which  we  are  working;  who  must 
meet  the  representatives  of  the  other  co-operating  societies  and 
of  the  convention,  and  with  them  work  out  the  best  possible 
plans  for  presenting  the  common  cause  to  the  churches;  who 
must  wrestle  with  budgets  and  apportionments;  must  conduct 
the  correspondence  with  the  district  secretaries,  keeping  them 
informed  about  the  situation  at  home  and  abroad,  that  they  in 
turn  may  do  their  work  effectively;  who  must  prepare  articles 
for  the  newspapers  and  literature  of  many  kinds  for  circulation 

[  ii  ] 


among  the  churches;  and  besides  all  this  must  endure  that 
which  comes  upon  him  daily,  the  criticism  of  all  the  churches 
that  they  are  each  asked  to  give  too  much  and  that  the  total  of 
all  that  they  give  is  too  little. 

But  there  are  yet  two  other  important  functions  that  fall  to 
the  officers.  One  of  these  is  the  task  of  keeping  in  personal  touch 
with  the  young  men  who  are  turning  their  minds  to  the  thought 
of  entering  upon  foreign  missionary  service.  Did  you  ever  stop 
to  consider  how  the  missionaries  of  the  Society  are  secured?  Is 
it  your  impression  that  when  we  need  a  missionary  we  go  out 
to  the  nearest  employment  office  and  take  the  best  man  on  the 
list?  Can  you  imagine  a  task  more  delicate,  more  difficult,  more 
important  than  the  selection  of  the  men  and  women  who  are  to 
be  our  representatives  to  the  Christian  churches  and  to  the  non- 
Christian  peoples  of  non-Christian  lands?  Does  it  not  seem  to 
you  that  some  officer  of  your  Society  ought  to  be  in  close  touch 
with  these  prospective  missionaries  not  for  a  month,  but  if 
possible  for  several  years  before  they  are  actually  sent  out, 
advising  them  about  their  preparation,  discovering  for  what 
sort  of  work  they  are  fitted,  and  turning  to  other  occupations 
those  who  are  really  unfitted  for  the  foreign  service?  It  is  to 
the  honor  of  our  Society  that  under  the  leadership  of  our  Home 
Secretary  we  were  the  first  to  systematize  this  part  of  a  secre¬ 
tary’s  duty  and  work  out  a  plan  which  is  now  being  followed  by 
other  boards. 

The  second  special  task  that  I  wish  to  mention  arises  out  of  the 
fact  that  in  a  work  as  large  as  ours,  special  problems  are  con¬ 
stantly.  arising  and  calling  for  decisive  action  by  the  Board. 
Many  of  these  problems  are  very  complex;  their  roots  reach 
back  into  the  past  history  of  our  missions,  involve  important 
relations  to  the  churches  in  missionary  lands,  to  other  mis¬ 
sionary  societies  and  like  bodies.  The  Board  cannot  act  wisely 
without  full  knowledge  of  the  situation.  Sometimes  it  is  even 
necessary  to  send  an  officer  of  the  Society  to  make  an  investiga¬ 
tion  on  the  foreign  field.  Yet  often  it  is  impossible  either  to  do 
this  or  for  the  Foreign  Secretary  to  take  time  from  his  pressing 
daily  duties  to  prepare  and  present  an  adequate  report  making 
possible  intelligent  action  by  the  Board.  I  could  this  moment 
easily  name  six  or  eight  such  problems  on  which  action  ought 
soon  to  be  taken  but  on  none  of  which  do  I,  at  least,  feel  prepared 
to  act  without  a  full  report  based  on  an  extended  special  in¬ 
vestigation.  If  we  had  a  secretary  whose  only  duty  was  to  take 
up  these  problems  one  by  one  and  after  careful  investigation 
give  the  Board  a  statement  of  the  underlying  facts  and  his 

[  12  ] 


judgment  as  to  the  action  to  be  taken,  I  have  no  doubt  that  he 
would  be  always  busy;  nor  do  I  doubt  that  his  work  would 
in  the  end  save  the  Society  thousands  of  dollars  in  money,  and, 
what  is  far  more  important,  contribute  greatly  to  the  success 
and  effectiveness  of  its  work. 

But  I  must  not  fail  to  speak  also  of  the  very  important  work 
of  another  officer  of  the  Society,  the  Treasurer.  Perhaps  some 
of  you  have  supposed  that  his  only  duties  are  to  open  letters 
and  extract  money  from  them,  keep  accounts  and  sign  checks 
as  ordered  by  the  Board.  If  so,  to  broaden  your  conception  of 
his  work  may  I  mention  three  facts.  First,  the  Treasurer  has 
general  charge  of  all  the  property  of  the  Society  in  all  the 
countries  in  which  we  work,  including  the  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  dollars  invested  in  hospitals,  schools,  and  other  buildings,  as 
well  as  general  oversight  of  the  work  and  accounts  of  all  mission 
treasurers.  The  second  fact  is  that  his  daily  mail  necessitated 
by  the  handling  of  this  business  is  larger  than  that  of  any  other 
officer  of  the  Society.  The  third  is  that  he  is  the  watch-dog  of 
the  treasury  —  the  man  whose  business  it  is  to  keep  the  Board 
informed  as  to  the  state  of  the  treasury,  the  relation  of  income 
and  outgo,  and  to  utter  his  warning  against  appropriations  that 
contravene  the  general  policy  or  the  previous  decisions  of  the 
Board.  Even  thus  I  have  named  only  a  part  of  the  many  and 
responsible  duties  of  the  Treasurer. 

For  the  management  of  the  affairs  of  our  Society  the  roster 
of  officers  ought  then  to  include: 

The  Foreign  Secretary 
The  Home  Secretary 
The  Field  Secretary 
The  Candidate  Secretary 
The  Research  Secretary,  and 
The  Treasurer. 

Into  the  difficult  question  whether  any  of  these  offices  can  be 
combined,  as  for  example  that  of  the  Home  and  the  Field 
Secretary  or  that  of  the  Field  and  the  Candidate  Secretary, 
and  whether  in  any  case  the  duties  of  any  office  are  so  arduous, 
extensive  and  delicate  as  to  require  the  division  of  them  between 
two  men,  as  for  example  in  the  case  of  the  Foreign  Secretary  — ■ 
into  this  question  I  am  not  proposing  to  enter.  I  am  speaking 
of  functions,  not  of  individuals.  I  am  counting  offices  not  men. 

Perhaps  it  may  seem  to  you  that  in  this  definition  of  the  duties 
of  the  officers  I  have  left  nothing  for  the  Board  of  Managers  to 
do.  But  I  am  sure  that  none  of  the  officers  is  of  this  opinion, 

[  i3  ] 


nor  do  I  believe  that  the  experience  of  the  Board  has  led  any  of 
its  members  to  this  opinion.  They  are  the  appointed  repre¬ 
sentatives  of  the  denomination,  charged  under  such  instructions 
as  the  Society  may  give  them  with  the  responsibility  of  defining 
the  policy  of  the  Society  in  all  phases  of  the  work,  at  home  and 
abroad,  and  of  authorizing  the  actions  which  the  officers  after 
their  study  may  recommend. 

No  one  can  serve  on  the  Board  for  even  a  short  time  and  take 
his  duties  seriously  without  coming  to  have  a  very  deep  sense  of 
the  responsibility  of  the  position  and  of  the  high  order  of  quali¬ 
fications  that  are  necessary  to  fit  one  adequately  to  discharge 
its  duties.  If  one  who  has  served  on  the  Board  ventures  to 
name  some  of  these  qualifications  he  will  surely  not  be  under¬ 
stood  as  claiming  that  he  possesses  any  of  them  in  full  measure 
or  all  of  them  in  any  measure,  or  as  passing  adverse  judgment 
on  any  of  his  honored  colleagues.  But  rightly  to  fill  a  place  on 
the  Board  one  ought  to  have  a  clear  conception  of  the  purpose 
and  scope  of  the  foreign  missionary  enterprise,  a  good  knowledge 
of  the  present  condition  of  the  Oriental  world  and  of  Africa, 
and  of  the  history  of  Christian  missions  especially  in  the  last 
hundred  years,  a  capacity  for  grasping  quickly  the  elements  of 
a  complex  situation,. keen  sympathy  with  the  difficulties  and 
perplexities  of  men  in  distant  lands,  many  of  whom  he  has 
never  seen,  and  a  judicial  temper  combined  with  a  capacity  for 
prompt  decision  tempered  by  an  absolute  unwillingness  to 
reach  decisions  otherwise  than  on  a  basis  of  facts.  It  would  be 
highly  desirable  that  every  member  of  the  Board  should,  before 
entering  on  his  office,  or  soon  after  doing  so,  make  a  journey  to 
one  or  more  of  the  lands  in  which  our  Society  is  working.  The 
practice  of  the  Presbyterian  Board  to  send  a  delegation  abroad 
every  year  and  to  keep  one  of  the  officers  always  on  the  field  is 
one  which  I  hope  may  sometime  be  possible  for  our  own  Society 
to  adopt.  Such  journeys  should  not  be  thought  of  as  junketing 
trips  but  as  serious  investigative  undertakings  most  necessary 
for  the  equipment  of  the  Board  and  its  officers  with  the  knowl¬ 
edge  necessary  to  a  wise  discharge  of  their  responsible  duties. 
That  such  journeys  will  often  tax  to  the  utmost  the  wisdom 
and  resourcefulness,  as  well  as  the  physical  strength  of  those 
who  undertake  them  is  well  illustrated  and,  as  respects  physical 
strength,  painfully  exemplified  by  the  journey  recently  under¬ 
taken  on  instruction  of  the  Board  by  our  Foreign  Secretary  now 
lying  ill  in  a  Japanese  city. 

It  will  be. inferred  that  the  present  speaker  is  not  much  in 
sympathy  with  the  urgent  demand  sometimes  made  that  home 

[  14  ] 


expenses  shall  be  reduced.  I  am  utterly  opposed  to  the  expendi¬ 
ture  of  a  single  dollar  for  anything  else  than  the  promotion  of 
the  work  of  evangelizing  and  Christianizing  the  world.  I  would 
not  vote  knowingly  for  the  use  of  a  postage  stamp  for  anything 
that  would  not  promote  this  end,  and  I  freely  admit  that  there 
is  danger  of  using  money  at  home  and  abroad  unwisely.  But 
the  longer  I  am  in  contact  with  the  work  of  foreign  missions  and 
the  more  I  know  of  the  work  of  our  Society,  the  more  fully  am 
I  convinced  that  no  real  distinction  can  be  drawn  between  home 
expense  and  foreign  expense,  and  the  more  sure  I  am  that  we 
are  quite  as  much  in  danger  of  crippling  our  work  abroad  by 
failing  to  provide  an  adequate  staff  of  officers,  as  by  curtailing 
appropriations  for  work  abroad.  We  have  long  passed  the 
point  when  our  task  can  be  accomplished  by  any  number  of 
individuals  working  independently.  We  are  engaged  in  a  vast 
and  complicated  enterprise  with  relations  to  other  Boards  and 
to  foreign  governments  —  a  work  which  demands  co-ordination 
of  all  our  forces  for  clearly  defined  ends,  whether  this  be  evangel¬ 
ism,  education,  publication,  or  medical  work,  and  co-operation 
with  the  work  of  other  societies.  No  more  foolish  policy  could 
possibly  be  adopted  by  an  American  business  house  doing 
business  in  foreign  lands  than  to  reduce  unduly  the  work  and 
staff  of  the  home  office.  And  what  is  true  of  such  a  business  is 
not  a  whit  less  true  of  our  Society.  In  extraordinary  financial 
situations,  we  must  bend  our  ideals  to  the  temporary  pressure 
of  the  hour,  But  we  ought  never  to  mistake  the  necessity  of  an 
hour  for  a  general  policy.  When  ammunition  is  exhausted  and 
officers  fallen,  it  may  be  necessary  to  send  the  army  forward 
unweaponed  and  unofficered,  but  it  would  be  the  height  of  folly 
to  adopt  the  general  policy  of  fighting  without  officers  or 
ammunition. 


IV.  THE  CHURCHES  AND  THEIR  OPPORTUNITY 

But  my  purpose  today  is  to  plead  not  for  larger  or  smaller 
expense  at  home,  but  for  the  hearty  and  ungrudging  co-operation 
of  all  our  forces  for  the  achievement  of  the  great  purposes  for 
which  the  Society  exists.  We  have  before  us  a  magnificent  task, 
a  God-given  opportunity  and  responsibility.  We  ought  care¬ 
fully  to  scrutinize  all  our  methods  and  all  our  machinery,  and 
remorselessly  eliminate  every  part  of  it  that  is  unnecessary,  and 
every  man  or  woman  who  is  inefficient.  But  important  as  is 
this  work  of  pruning,  vastly  more  important  is  it  that  we  all 
gain  a  vision  of  the  dignity,  the  scope,  the  glory  of  the  enterprise 

[  IS  ] 


in  which  we  are  by  God’s  good  grace  engaged,  and  heartily  throw 
ourselves  with  all  our  force  into  the  task  of  accomplishing  it. 
Of  what  avail  is  perfect  machinery  if  there  be  no  enthusiasm 
behind  it?  Of  what  avail  a  locomotive,  complete,  polished  and 
oiled  and  on  the  tracks,  if  there  be  no  steam  in  the  boiler,  no  fire 
underneath?  On  the  churches  of  the  home  land  rests  in  the  last 
analysis  the  responsibility  for  the  carrying  forward  of  this 
enterprise,  in  so  far  as  that  responsibility  does  not  fall  upon  the 
churches  of  Christ  in  foreign  lands.  From  them  must  come 
the  Board  of  Managers,  from  them  must  come  the  officers,  from 
them  must  come  the  missionaries,  from  them  must  come  the 
money.  If  we,  the  churches  of  Christ  fail,  all  must  fail.  If 
we  rise  to  the  measure  of  our  responsibility  in  thought,  in 
prayer,  in  giving,  God  will  not  fail  us,  we  must  succeed. 

The  missionary  enterprise,  rightly  conceived,  is,  as  I  said  at 
the  outset,  the  grandest  enterprise  in  which  the  human  race  is 
engaged  today.  How  dreadful  compared  with  it  is  war,  in 
which  millions  upon  millions  in  money  and  thousands  upon 
thousands  of  lives  are  sacrificed.  How  petty  compared  with  it 
is  the  acquiring  of  fortunes  for  the  gratification  of  personal 
ambitions.  How  utterly  unworthy  compared  with  it  is  the 
devotion  of  one’s  life  to  the  pursuit  of  personal  pleasure,  or 
indeed  of  any  ambition  which  pertains  to  one’s  own  welfare 
only.  Cannot  we  whose  eyes  have  caught  a  vision  of  the  incom¬ 
parable  dignity  and  worth  of  this  noblest  of  human  efforts, 
forget  all  differences  of  opinion,  all  conflicts  of  judgment,  all 
criticisms  and  hesitations,  and  unite  our  efforts  as  one  man, 
with  one  soul  and  one  spirit  striving  together  for  the  triumph 
of  the  Gospel  of  Christ  in  every  land  on  which  the  sun  shines, 
among  every  nation  of  the  race  of  men?  God  grant  us  grace 
so  to  do,  and  add  His  blessing,  without  which  all  efforts  would 
be  in  vain. 


FOR  additional  copies  of  this  pamphlet  or  information  regarding  the 
work  of  the  American  Baptist  Foreign  Mission  Society,  write  to  any 
of  the  following: 

1.  The  nearest  District  Secretary. 

2.  Department  of  Missionary  Education,  23  East  26th  Street,  New  York  City. 

3.  Literature  Department,  Box  41,  Boston,  Mass. 


1 1 1 1 — iom — 8-19-1915 


